Mike writes: "Individual privacy is under greater threat than ever before in both the United States and across the European Union, the international rights group Privacy International has said in a report. "The general trend is that privacy is being extinguished in country after country," said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International. "Even those countries where we expected ongoing strong privacy protection, like Germany and Canada, are sinking into the mire." And things are getting worse, not better, the report concludes."

Ok, we have less privacy now. What are the practical results of this, and how do we deal with it?

Say your prospective/current employer can find out everything about you. Would this result in an abandonment of hard to enforce anti-discrimination laws? Would it result in strengthening those laws, maybe to the point of requiring a solid reason to fire someone?

Say the government knows everything about you. This is obviously bad under our current system, since absolute power is kinda neat. Could the problems